Pavilion of Longing

The itinerant vendor, pointing past the carriage driver, glared at Liu Aijiu.

The admiration he once felt had now turned to pure hatred.

“He swore that as long as you believed in love, everyone could find a wife—but I’m the only one who never did!”

“I trusted him so much!”

“He’s a guest of the government, a member of the Red Swan Wenyuan Pavilion!”

“Yet he never gave me a wife.”

“Tell me, don’t I have the right to hit him?”

The carriage driver finally snapped back to reality. He turned his head, stared at Liu Aijiu, and said, “So you’re Master Liu? Damn it, I’ve read those books too—and I don’t have a wife either!”

“Brother!” The driver stepped aside and gestured to the vendor. “Hey, ask him for me too.

Where’s my wife?”

“Sure,” the vendor replied, rolling up his sleeves.

He walked up to Liu Aijiu and began slapping him back and forth.

With each slap, he demanded, “Where’s my wife?”

“Where’s my wife?”

“Where’s my wife?”

Liu Aijiu was nearly knocked unconscious but still couldn’t tell the vendor where his wife was hiding. Only when the vendor grew tired did he stop.

“I’m probably fated never to marry in this life,” Liu Aijiu murmured.

His voice carried an indescribable sorrow mixed with a hint of despair, as if he had given up on the whole world.

Empathy spreads easily. The driver’s mood sank too.

He thought of his own plight: pushing forty, still single, with dowries in Huai’an City sky-high. Women who had nothing to offer regularly demanded a hundred taels of silver.

And on top of that, they wanted love! What the hell was love?

All he wanted was to survive in this world, to continue his bloodline. Why did he have to learn about love? Couldn’t he just marry a woman, respect her, and be done with it?

“Help… help me…”

Liu Aijiu’s faint voice broke through. He lay on the ground like a dying dog.

It jolted the driver back to reality. He suddenly remembered Liu Aijiu’s identity and quickly said to the vendor, “Brother, I forgot to mention something. I have a feeling this Liu Aijiu might be a fugitive…”

Then he explained how Liu Aijiu had come to him before dawn to rent a carriage, along with his growing suspicions.

The vendor grew excited.

“If he really is a fugitive, can we turn him in to the authorities? Would they reward us?”

“Maybe even set us up with wives?”

The driver nodded emphatically. “That’s a plan!

“Let’s go for it. Otherwise, spending our lives alone is no way to live.”

“Deal!”

They quickly reached an agreement.

Liu Aijiu was dumbfounded.

What the hell? He had traveled eighty miles, his bones rattled to the core by the bumpy carriage, and he was just one step away from Yuancheng. Now—

they wanted to drag him back?

He struggled to protest.

Protest denied.

He got slapped again.

That shut him up.

They threw him onto the carriage and creaked back along the same route. The vendor rode beside them on horseback, keeping watch.

Less than half an hour later, the ground began to tremble. Looking up, they saw thousands of cavalry charging toward them.

The sheer military might terrified the vendor; pale-faced, he instinctively fell to his knees.

The driver stopped him.

“Looks like they’re the Duke’s men. The Duke’s men don’t usually kill civilians,” he said, trying to calm his own nerves.

Before he finished speaking, the cavalry arrived. The driver and the vendor then saw that the lead rider was a woman.

She wore a tight-fitting combat outfit, embroidered with broken lotus blossoms at the chest. On her waist hung a black iron token inscribed with the words “Demon Suppression.”

The driver gasped.

“It’s the Demon Suppression Bureau!”

“They carry the Heart-Cutting Blade and wear the Demon Suppression robe!”

Growing up in the city, the driver had naturally learned about the Bureau since Ren Tianye took over Huai’an. He’d heard all the legends.

The vendor was clueless, bewildered.

Before he could ask anything, the driver began shouting, “Ma’am! Ma’am! We want to report a crime! A crime!”

Su Jin had already noticed them. She spurred her horse forward, halted smoothly, and dismounted with practiced ease, standing firmly before them.

“Ma’am, Ma’am, we caught a man. We suspect he’s a wanted criminal. He’s Liu Aijiu of the Liu Mansion in Huai’an City…”

Su Jin’s face lit up with joy.

She had led her light cavalry on a frantic, hours-long chase. Now, their efforts had finally paid off—they’d captured Liu Aijiu, a key witness.

She quickly identified him with the help of a former Huai’an officer, confirming his identity. She let out a deep sigh of relief.

Now, at least she could redeem herself.

Still, noticing the vendor and the driver, Su Jin’s instincts sparked a flicker of suspicion. But she quickly masked it with a warm smile, walked up to them, and asked what had happened—why was Liu Aijiu here?

The two didn’t dare hide anything. They explained everything from start to finish. The vendor even admitted how he had confronted Liu Aijiu about his wife.

Su Jin, experienced enough to discern truth from lies, nodded. “You’ve done a great service. Return to the city and report to the Demon Suppression Bureau for your reward.”

The two men started to kneel in thanks, but Su Jin stopped them. She glanced at the driver, then at the vendor, and said, “Huai’an City is different now.

“If you want to go back, go back.

“No need to wander outside anymore.”

She smiled, her naturally charming face unable to mask the sincerity in her eyes.

“Huai’an has changed. The world is about to change too. You’ll soon find the girl of your dreams.

“The Duke won’t allow hardworking, diligent men to go without wives.”

With those words, Su Jin Mounted her horse with effortless grace and spurred it forward. The horse let out a whinny, and she galloped back, leaving behind a hazy silhouette in the sunlight—almost majestic.

The vendor stared, his heart surging. “She’s… like an immortal,” he whispered.

“That’s right!” the driver exclaimed excitedly. “Did you hear? The lady from the Demon Suppression Bureau said that the Duke won’t let us go without wives! We’re going to have homes!”

The vendor laughed with joy.

“We’re going to have homes.”

But as they laughed, tears began to roll down their cheeks.

---

In the prison of Huai’an City, an array of torture instruments lay before the prisoner.

Liu Aijiu, his hands chained to an iron ring, had lost count of how many times he’d collapsed in despair.

Yet each answer was exactly the same.

“That play… my master ordered me to stage it. I didn’t know why. I even opposed it because the plot was too weak—it couldn’t properly show the Duke’s disdain for love.”

“But my master insisted. I had no choice.”

“I’m telling the truth! Please, believe me!”

Xie Changfeng emerged from the cell and approached Ren Tianye.

“Duke, Liu Aijiu seems to be telling the truth. No one could give the same identical answers under such conditions and remain lying,” he said.

Ren Tianye sat outside the cell, silent, frowning.

He also felt that what Liu Aijiu said was true.

But that truth only left him more bewildered.

“Duke, it seems we’ll have to ask him—the real owner.”

“Based on the intelligence we’ve gathered and Liu Aijiu’s confession, we can determine that Liu Aijiu is merely the branch manager. In reality, there is a commercial establishment in Yunjing called the Pavilion of Longing.”

“It deals entirely in matters of love.”

“And it has deep ties to the Heartbound Alliance.”

“I suspect this Pavilion of Longing might be a disguised offshoot of the Heartbound Alliance.”

Ren Tianye had already speculated as much.

That would point directly to the Heartbound Alliance’s Grand Palace Master, Liu Ruyan.

But…

There was still that question.

How exactly did Liu Ruyan know the private matters between him and his ex-girlfriend in his past life?

Could Liu Ruyan actually be his ex-girlfriend?

Ren Tianye shook his head.

Unlikely!

As for why it seemed unlikely, Ren Tianye couldn’t articulate it clearly. It was just a feeling that it wasn’t so.

…